Our Smoky Stars
by Cerulean Pen
Summary: Being a celebrity should be easy…Brittany tries her hardest to forget Alvin, Jeanette fades in with the crowd, and Eleanor discovers what being over-weight really is…one-shot, I am returning. 70th story!


Smoke Stars

Summary: Being a celebrity should be easy…Brittany tries her hardest to forget Alvin, Jeanette fades in with the crowd, and Eleanor discovers what being over-weight really is…one-shot, I am returning. 70th story!

English Family/Hurt/Comfort Rated: T Chapters:1 Words:

Flash. Flash. Flashflashflashflash.

If Brittany smiles long enough, her cheeks are frozen that way, pearly teeth bared into a syrupy grin, strawberry lips so glittery, so smooth, beckoning any handsome fool to kiss. Little flecks of glitter sometimes work past her black-as-sin mascara shield and land in her ice blue eyes, but she's immune now. Being a star means that you forget all of petty little things (like uncomfortable sensations and pain) and make room for more.

"Brittany, who are you wearing?"

"Brittany, is it true you're working with Justin Bieber?"

"Brittany, over here babe!"

_Brittany, Brittany, Brittany…_ever since she was a little girl, she longed for paparazzi to screech her name, to be blinded by cameras, for the entire world to schmooze over her fame and fortune. Is it everything she wanted it to be? Oh, yes…Brittany doesn't know if she's really there, or if a smiling mannequin has taken her place, but this is real and exciting and every little person in the world has their eyes on _her._

Brittany blows a kiss to a clump of shrieking male fans, giggling coyly when they grab at the air, as if she had blown over a true kiss. Her auburn tendrils fall in her face, finally breaking from their hairspray mold, but she doesn't care, she just hitches up the skirt of her rather short carnation dress, earning sexy whistles from the crowd. They love every second of it, and Brittany _thinks _she loves every second of it, until a flash of red crosses her mind and she stops.

"Brittany," Eleanor hisses, obviously angry about being blocked as the three girls sashay down the red carpet, fans and paparazzi guarded only by metal gates. Brittany snaps out of her daze, strutting forward, but with less enthusiasm: she's now thinking about Alvin Seville, who is probably watching their red carpet premiere with tears in his eyes. Alvin Seville should never cry, especially over a bitch like her, so Brittany wears sunglasses, to hide the pain and the sorrow and the lonely, lonely, loneliness.

Leaving Alvin for her career-to cliché for words, right? Brittany always suspected Alvin would leave her to become a rock star, but, surprisingly, he and his brothers resigned from the music business to focus on high school. This left plenty of lime-light for the Chipettes, who were a bigger sensation then the Beatles.

Now, the three hopped from hotel to hotel, hitching bus and taxi rides, performing wherever they pleased, Miss Miller doing her best to keep their family together. She was elderly, yes, but her eccentric life-style seemed to fade, leaving a rather reliant, responsible guardian in her place. Brittany never wanted to leave this life, or even visit her old house, a safe little cottage tucked in warm breast of their old neighborhood, a short stroll away from the Chipmunk's house.

Eleanor e-mailed Theodore everyday (usually during meal times to discuss what both were eating) and Jeanette never went a day without calling Simon, their conversations punctured with sappy "I love you" and "I miss you, honey" comments. Brittany never thought about Alvin, until she remembered that he could watching at home, wringing his cap in his hands, before turning off the TV, and most likely forgetting himself.

"Do you ever think about him?" Jeanette once asked timidly, as their taxi cab sped through a calmer portion of California, Eleanor fast asleep by the window. Brittany had only stared at her perfectly manicured nails, ignoring her question, only because she couldn't find the voice to answer her. Yes, she thought about him, but she tried her hardest to suppress his image, his actions, his words, every little adventure or playful vignette framed in dusty photo albums and luggage pockets.

But this was where she belonged: performing, beaming for paparazzi, hooking up with any boy that scored high enough on her Hot O' Meter, and breaking his heart at the bar the same night. It was exhilarating and devious and made it plenty easy to forget a certain red clad Chipmunk. Did he have his name on Boulevard? No. She did. That's how she liked it.

"Brittany, over her!"

"Brittany, bring on the sexy!"

Brittany stretched her smile even further, ignoring the tears in her eyes (it had to be the glitter in the air, it had to be.) Flash, flash, flashflashflashflash.

Jeanette couldn't breathe the moment she set one wedge heel on the red carpet; the air seeming to be filled with the screams of fans, the evasive questions of paparazzi, the very rhythm of Hollywood thumping behind her ears. She shielded her emerald eyes from the blinding lights, so bright that they gave her a headache. Of course, it could be because of the fact she wasn't wearing her glasses. In the hotel room, Brittany had venomously admonished her for wearing them, and told her that no sister of hers would go on the red carpet wearing glasses.

But it didn't matter. Jeanette never appeared on a magazine cover, or was yelled at by a fan, or was even so much as cheered for after a concert. She was just Jeanette: quiet, aloof, studious, was just your average nerd before the celebrity life and should still be treated with snootiness. Even in Hollywood, Jeanette never did anything exciting: she had yet to drink (Brittany needed a glass of vodka to get through the day, even Eleanor experimented with gin) she didn't smoke or fuck at clubs every night or get any drastic plastic surgery that would make her chest the size of Brittany's.

She was just Jeanette.

Glitter. Jeanette resisted the urge to spit, to get the horrible little flakes of a Barbie doll's tears out of her mouth, but she didn't, she just tried to smile, knowing that her bucked teeth must be incredibly obvious. The only magazine cover she would make would be Dentist Monthly. But she didn't want to be on a magazine cover: Jeanette signed the contract to sing, to finally let her voice be heard.

_Yeah, if you give me a megaphone and make me stand alone onstage, _Jeanette thought bitterly, posing reluctantly, her feet shaky even in stout wedges. She didn't need heels, for she was already tall and skinny, just as she always had been, although Brittany was staring to catch up. She had tripped on the red carpet three times in six months, and she didn't want to go for four.

Jeanette thought only of Simon when she performed. She pictured him sitting in the audience, probably in the first row, his steel blue eyes shining with the radiant light reflecting off of his round glasses. He would cheer the loudest for her, and come into her dressing room, and take off her glasses, and kiss her while mouthing "I love you" onto her lips. Jeanette longed for nothing but Simon, all the time: a phone call or web-chat could not cut it, she wanted the real Simon, in all of his dry, studious self.

_You wouldn't make me stumble around blind, _Jeanette thought ruefully, glancing at Brittany's sashaying form, and writhing in disgust when she blew a kiss to anonymous fans. For once, she felt truly sorry for Alvin, who loved her, with all of his heart, but rarely did anything but tease her, because that's all boys know how to do.

The tendons in her ankles ached, and Jeanette wondered how long the red carpet was, wanting to rub her eyes to clear the blue spots from her vision. Brittany had laden her eyelashes with mascara and created a smoky eye shadow and eye liner shade around her eyelids. Smearing any of this would earn a rather bitchy Brittany for the next few days.

Why did Brittany even accept to do this? Jeanette loved to perform, but she liked to perform when she knew that there was a warm house to go home to and a pot of Miss Miller's homemade spaghetti. The only spaghetti they had was microwavable, eaten between concerts or rehearsals or interviews. Sleeping in a hotel suite was not the same as home. Jeanette wanted to go home.

Most of all, she wanted to get away from Hollywood. Everybody here was plastic (metaphorically and literally) and it sickened her to see anorexic figures and huge boobs and tight dresses and high heels and red-lipped smiles and glasses of vodka and tabloid covers and paparazzi swarming everywhere. Glitter fell instead of rain, stars were either hazed out by neon lights or simply thought of as celebrities marching down crimson carpets.

Brittany had definitely fit in with everyone, with her egotistical ways, beauty-starved personality, and love for fame, and stated that she never wanted to leave. Eleanor had adapted quickly, only to…well, it was a rather long story that Jeanette would rather not discuss. Jeanette just wanted to return to her old life, to not have to wear make-up, or get her hair styled, or have to make a million people happy by smiling and saying everything was all right. She'd rather be unpopular, school-loving, bespectacled Jeanette then a carbon-copy celebrity.

"Over here Jeanie!"

Someone actually knew her name? It wasn't even her name, but a silly little nickname, that must've come before remembering what her real name was (Jenny, Nettie, Jeanie, something like that.) Jeanette smiled, but it was truly a grimace, because she wanted to let the paparazzi know that she was suffering.

Flash, flash, flashflashflash.

Eleanor now knew beauty.

It wasn't how much make-up you applied, or how high your hair was, or how expensive your dress was: it was how thin you were. Could you squeeze into a size four? Could you survive for days on carrot sticks or vitamins alone? Could you be nothing but skin stretched over a skeleton and still smile and look amazing? Not Eleanor.

So she adapted. Eleanor soon found that she had two new friends: Ana and Mia. Ana encouraged her to barely eat at all, and to burn any calories she did ingest on a treadmill or row machine. Mia encouraged her to eat all she wanted-and then throw it back up so that she could stay thin, thin, thin. Eleanor didn't want to know them; but they were her only true friends, so what could she say?

Eleanor had come to Hollywood with size ten clothes and a ring of baby fat clinging to her hips for dear life. Immediately, she was greeted with falsetto voices, that danced around her head: "Darling, you are so brave! You go out there everyday with that figure, and you don't think anything about it! Oh, I wish I had that kind of courage!" It was their version of a compliment, basically an insult turned sideways.

So Eleanor stopped eating. It was like to stop smoking, or for Homer Simpson to be on withdraw: all she wanted to do was eat, but she disciplined herself, rewarding herself every day with maybe a carrot, or a handful of grapes. All carbs? Gone. Sugars? No more cake for her. Starch? Save the microwave spaghetti for someone else please. It had to be unhealthy, it had to be wrong, but the number on the scale dipped down and Eleanor finally felt _pretty._

Exercising no longer became fun. Eleanor pushed herself to physical exhaustion on rowing machines, treadmills, any source of equipment she could find. Even playing soccer as a kid hadn't slimmed her down, so Eleanor forced herself to do harder, do more, run until her muscles snapped like rubber bands.

Finally, the scale read eighty-five. Eleanor was kitten weak every day, her hair became brittle, she was always cold, but she was finally beautiful. After every televised performance, her inbox would be full of comments about how skinny she was, about her dieting secrets (give us more Ellie, we want to be like you.)

But Ana and Mia never left her mind. "Coffee is danger, sweetie," Ana would bark, filing her nails, "all the sugar goes to the thighs. Now, another five miles-come on, don't be a wimp, do you want to look like you did when you first arrived?" Ana was brutal, yet rewarding. Mia, on the other hand, was more cunning and seductive, luring Eleanor past Ana's insults to purge, then rid herself of it. The beauty of purging was too amazing for words.

Jeanette was pulling her hair out over Eleanor's condition (especially after she passed out for a grand total of six times) but Eleanor just shushed her. She didn't want any body to take Ana or Mia away from her, she just hungered (metaphorically of course, mustn't make Ana angry) to be skinny, skinny, skinny.

Theodore worried even more then Jeanette did. Whenever Eleanor logged onto her e-mail, she always found at least three messages from Theodore about her health (are you eating? Are you alright? Why did you pass out on the Ellen Show?) Eleanor came up with pretty good answers, and assured him that she was perfectly fine, maybe the camera just made her look skinnier.

It felt terrible to lie to Theodore, but Eleanor didn't want anyone to interfere with making herself look better. She just curled her falling-out blond hair, slathered make-up over her Edward Cullen pale skin, and wore dresses that bragged, scoffed at anyone who was over eighty pounds now. Pain now rooted itself in every cell of her body, but Eleanor Miller did not know pain anymore. She just knew beauty.

"Eleanor, tell us your dieting secrets!"

_No, no, Eleanor, we're yours, only yours, _Mia whispered, as Ana cackled, and Eleanor smiled, smiled, smiled, and ran a finger along her concave waist.

After that red carpet premiere, everything changed…

Brittany broke down, called Alvin Seville, and she demanded that he meet her at their old tree house in three hours. Brittany hopped a bus and met him in the rotting pile of planks she had once called her home, and they talked, and they kissed, and they made love so hard, Brittany no longer cared about being a star.

Jeanette quit her contract, and bought a car. She drove all the way back to her old neighborhood, where her house was on the market, and bought it with her paycheck. Simon Seville spent hours upon hours with Jeanette, the two of them buying furniture, or patching cracks, or simply kissing in the hallway of their new home.

Eleanor collapsed for the final time and almost had a heart attack during a rehearsal. Miss Miller sent her to a rehab center, where Eleanor finally gained back most of her weight and silenced Ana and Mia forever. She returned home (her real home) and reconciled with Theodore, who prepared her a feast that she truly, really ate.

None of them ever ventured back into Hollywood again.

**Crappy ending, but I enjoyed writing this and I'm happy to reconcile with my old friends in this archive, and I hope to have a few more projects up soon. This story might seem a little OoC, but I am simply portraying their personalities in Hollywood. Alright, leave a review! =)**


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